Sampling the Pleasures of the Pearl River Delta
Taipei, Taiwan, China (?), July 26
I have no excuse for the delay since my last update, other than the number and variety of distractions available in Macau and Hong Kong. Also, I think I'm starting to look forward more to being home after nearly four months.
The "Buddha Leaping Over the Wall" turned out to be pretty good, a mixture of various types of shellfish and other seafood that looked like a dish from a science fiction movie. The flavors were a bit more subtle than I would have preferred, but still interesting. My final overnight bus ride, from Fuzhou to Guangzhou, was uneventful, and I arrived well-rested on July 21.
My hostel was near the US Consulate, and most of the stores in the vicinity had signs advertising the availability of strollers. This turns out to be because many Americans adopting Chinese babies end up spending several weeks in Guangzhou. I had some dim sum in the city that invented it (Guangzhou is also called Canton), and found that the few phrases of spoken Chinese I had picked up were rendered mostly useless by the change in the local spoken language to Cantonese. But writing down characters still sort of worked.
The next day (July 22) I took a bus to Zhuhai and walked over the quasi-border to Macau. My PRC visa was expiring the same day, and I wanted to leave plenty of time for all formalities. I found Macau nicely Mediterranean in atmosphere, but without the pretty beaches.
There are beaches, but they're strewn with all kinds of flotsam and jetsam, and look out onto brownish-green sections of the South China Sea. Much of Macau is a huge construction site--not unusual for China, except that the main projects in Macau are casinos. Steve Wynn's self-named edifice will be opening in a month or two and has a great location--as you go down one of the main streets it's outlined against the sky at the end of the canyon of buildings.
Other services that gamblers seem to demand are also much in evidence, and heavily
advertised by flyers. One "sauna" offered the massage services of my choice of "elite East-European model", "elite Korean model", "star-class Mongolian" or "star-class Vietnamese." What (if any) difference there may be among these is one of Macau's mysteries.
A local food specialty is sweet pork jerky served in flat pieces which are cut up with scissors. I liked it.
Sorry not to bring the story fully up-to-date. More soon.
I have no excuse for the delay since my last update, other than the number and variety of distractions available in Macau and Hong Kong. Also, I think I'm starting to look forward more to being home after nearly four months.
The "Buddha Leaping Over the Wall" turned out to be pretty good, a mixture of various types of shellfish and other seafood that looked like a dish from a science fiction movie. The flavors were a bit more subtle than I would have preferred, but still interesting. My final overnight bus ride, from Fuzhou to Guangzhou, was uneventful, and I arrived well-rested on July 21.
My hostel was near the US Consulate, and most of the stores in the vicinity had signs advertising the availability of strollers. This turns out to be because many Americans adopting Chinese babies end up spending several weeks in Guangzhou. I had some dim sum in the city that invented it (Guangzhou is also called Canton), and found that the few phrases of spoken Chinese I had picked up were rendered mostly useless by the change in the local spoken language to Cantonese. But writing down characters still sort of worked.
The next day (July 22) I took a bus to Zhuhai and walked over the quasi-border to Macau. My PRC visa was expiring the same day, and I wanted to leave plenty of time for all formalities. I found Macau nicely Mediterranean in atmosphere, but without the pretty beaches.
There are beaches, but they're strewn with all kinds of flotsam and jetsam, and look out onto brownish-green sections of the South China Sea. Much of Macau is a huge construction site--not unusual for China, except that the main projects in Macau are casinos. Steve Wynn's self-named edifice will be opening in a month or two and has a great location--as you go down one of the main streets it's outlined against the sky at the end of the canyon of buildings.
Other services that gamblers seem to demand are also much in evidence, and heavily
advertised by flyers. One "sauna" offered the massage services of my choice of "elite East-European model", "elite Korean model", "star-class Mongolian" or "star-class Vietnamese." What (if any) difference there may be among these is one of Macau's mysteries.
A local food specialty is sweet pork jerky served in flat pieces which are cut up with scissors. I liked it.
Sorry not to bring the story fully up-to-date. More soon.
posted by jeros | 12:47 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home